Hi all!
It was those once-in-a-blue-moon efforts to slim down that I decided to go jogging one day after work. Just so that the sun has still not set, I snuck out 1 hour ahead of the official teng-chu time and made it home with an hour of daylight left to spare. Oh ya, I had to do a little mission-impossible stunts as I was trying to walk out of the office in full view of everyone without letting them know I’m walking out in full view of everyone.
I just wore the same beige colour as the wall and dragged my beige sweater over my hair and arms and stood behind the office’s only flowerpot of fake plant that was slowly dying. So when the whole office realise the flowerpot had walked to the door, I was sprinting in pixie steps to freedom. At one point in time, just when the lift door opened, I heard footsteps downstairs. Since no one in their right mind is going to climb any form of stairs when the lift is available, I jump out of the lift before it snapped shut, only to let it open 1 floor below to admit all those lazy bums. Such Pigs, make me huff one flight down.
There a few slamming-flat-against-the-wall moments when I hear those expensive click-click of leather shoes (if you hear the flap flap of $2 flip-flops, it’s one of us), but I managed to escape unscathed.
I got home only to find A was around too, so he we decided to jog together, after he convinced me that he will not
1) Laugh hilariously at my jogging style. i.e Run like a gu-niang with limp wrists whose afraid of stepping on grass. Watch me do a hop-scotch at the garden path.
2) Talk to me during the jog, because I will automatically turn to the sound of a voice and hence, crash and burn.
3) Run too far ahead and leave me smelling his sweat and eating his dust.
4) Run too slow and let his vision be eclipsed by the size of my monstrous butt. This is for his safety.
5) Roll his eyes and get pissed if I have to stop and start rescuing snails from their misguided race across the path to the other side.
6) Make any comments about my state at the end of the run, the sweat, the water dripping from all pores and orifices, the shaking limbs and the siao-lang-keng-hairstyle.
I was as equally amused to see he is handling my demands as I was horrified to find that he is quite determined to jog with me. I have never let anyone watch me jog because they have their own eyes to care about. It’d be so irresponsible to make them pop watching me trundle alongside them like a gay elephant.
Just as we were about to set off with 30mins of light left to spare, his handphone rang. I was beside myself with relief until he motioned that it’ll take only 1 minute and I should wait for him.
So I waited and waited till the sun had set, the moon was up and my mum is screaming at us to eat dinner…..
There was a snap when he closed his phone and announced, ‘let’s go!’
I didn’t have the heart to tell his enthusiastic face that I’m slightly night-blind.
So after we made our way there, he gently placed me a bit further away from him (because I kept bumping him) and we started jogging. I had my ears plugged with pumping songs to distract me from the pain in my chest and thighs (and arms and feets and...). When you are fat, you not only run against your own weight, but also against air current and friction of those free swinging weights called saddlebags, love handles and underarm flab. Imagine running in near dark without proper vision and ears blocked by headphones. I felt like I was transported to a place where my pounding feet don’t belong to me and the floor beneath them was riddled with dark shapes and holes.
So it wasn’t long before something happened.
Seeing the floor come up to meet me was the easy bit. At the moment when you just had to close your eyes to silently scream along with Mariah Carey’s Fantasy Baby …’sweet sweet fantasy baby, when I close my eyes, you come and you taakkkeee meeee….OOOhhhhh oooHHHhoooohhAAAaahhhhrrGGGGHHHHHhh…’, and the next moment, you feet gets caught in a strip of grass posing as a darker shade of concrete flooring, the body slowly crashes headlong into a pinwheel of limbs and flab and shoes while the face says ‘hi’ to the tarmac.
That’s not the end. In fact, the fall was like any fall that I usually fall-----trip, legs crossed, tumble, feet in air, somersault and grand finale, face in mud.
It was the noise level. Halfway panting through the whole bloody course, I was already wheezing and heaving with every step. A tried his best but he was dying for at least a speed faster than the strolling pram ambling along the opposite side, so we subsisted into a jogging pace that made him somewhat 3 steps ahead of me.
Which made him unable to see me when I fell.
But he certainly heard me.
‘Whoops…Ow!...Ooh!....
...Ouch!....Oof!......
....Eek!..........Woof!........AAaarrrgghhhhhh!!!!!!’
When A turned around, he found me half plastered across the path, playing dead. After a few more whimpers, I managed to ease myself up slowly with a brave, half-worried smile of reassurance that would have won me Grammys.
While he gently got me up and brush me down, he said,
‘You OK?’
‘Yea, yea…..’ Cue brave smile.
‘Sure?’ he replied.
‘yes, I think so.’ Cue slight frown, braver smile.
‘OK.’ He relaxed.
Then he piped up, ‘Only you were screaming like a banshee just now; I thought you broke something.’
‘eh…afraid you won’t hear mah.’
‘What?’
‘Scared u cannot hear mah!’
‘You fall, I’ll hear one what.’
‘Aiyah….,’ and I started on a long discourse in the middle of the garden path. ‘Some people fall, can make body-hit-floor kind of noise—like piak piak noises.’ And I clapped my hands together to prove the point.
‘Skinny people make bone-hit-floor noises—like kok kok noises. Me, I Marshmallow Man. I fall, no noise.’
By now, I can see his eyes are looking from side to side, but I was on a roll and warming up.
‘Er dear…’
‘So so must signal to you mah. Garden here so many smooching couples. So lak-sey if I not only fall down in front of them, and they see my partner happy-happy disappear round the bend mah.’
‘Er…’
‘So, when the ground fly up to my face, I tell myself, must make sure A hears!’
‘Okok!’ and with that, he quickly reach around my neck and pluck out my earphones.
My screaming Linkin Park track is suddenly replaced by a deafening silence. I was made aware of all the ‘smooching couples’ turning our way, even the ones from 4 benches off.
Even the crickets were silent.
A then held my hand and slowly led me, traumatised, dumb and limping, through the long pathway back home. Even through my night-blindness, I can see some wide white grins floating past my side. Before long, we were walking faster until we rounded the corner, whereby A burst out laughing and laughing until I hoped he burst his spleen.
‘I think ….*gasp* *gasp*… we should…… muahahaha……jog together more often....muahahah....’
Choujidan……if I ever doubt his sincerity in hitching me, it's gone now. While I'm sure there could be so many girls who could be his Muse, I'm his one-and-only Comedy Central.
Out!
AKK
